Lord Glencairn shook his head gravely. “’Tis dangerous to speak thus, Robert,” he said with solemn earnestness. “You should be careful——”
“Careful of what?” interrupted Robert with impatient scorn. “Lest I offend people with my plain speaking of the truth?” He paused and looked around him with flashing eyes and dilated nostrils. “Who is careful of my feelings?” he demanded. “Not those who think themselves my superiors by accident of birth.” He turned to Sir William Creech and continued quickly, his voice vibrating with suppressed indignation. “I’ve never wronged ye, Sir William Creech, yet ye are miscreant enough to seek my ruin, for I’m fair sure ’twas ye yourself who inserted that scurrilous article in that paper ye hold in your hand, in which my faults, my past errors and follies are now being aired.”
Sir William turned a sickly color. “Think what you like,” he muttered savagely. “’Tis time the people of Edinburgh knew the character of the man they are honoring.”
“Sir William Creech, you are an old brute!” cried Eppy, her little gray eyes flashing fire, and going up to him she continued in haughty disdain, “Remember, sir, I will have naught to do with you in the future; I turn my back on you,” and she suited the action to the word.
Meanwhile, Robert had spoken in an undertone to Mrs. Dunlop, and that good soul, putting an arm around Mary, who stood white and trembling like a frightened child, walked to the door, and Robert, after a formal inclination of his head, started quietly but proudly after them. They had reached the door, when it suddenly opened and Lady Glencairn stood upon the threshold, her head held haughtily erect, her lips curled in a disdainful sneer. She entered the room and closed the door behind her, then turned and faced the wondering group which was being augmented by the entrance, through the window, of a number of the guests whose curiosity had been aroused by the unusual scene to which they had been listening in speechless amazement.
“Alice, what has happened?” cried Lord Glencairn in an alarmed voice. Her ladyship’s white, nervous face, the peculiar glitter in her eyes, startled him out of his usual calmness.
“James, I am deeply sorry to wound you,” she began nervously, “but it’s best that you should know how grievously you have been betrayed by one of your honored guests here to-day,” and she fixed her narrowed eyes upon the startled face of Robert Burns.
A great fear of impending danger came over him as he saw the revengeful look which she flashed at him, and he involuntarily straightened himself as if to receive a shock. There was a surprised movement among the crowd, and a low murmur of many voices broke the tense stillness which followed her accusation.
“I—betrayed?” repeated Lord Glencairn, in astonishment. “What mean you, my dear?”
“I mean,” she answered, and the lie rolled glibly off her crimson lips, “that your distinguished guest, Robert Burns, has to-day wantonly and without provocation grossly insulted the wife of his friend and host.” As the ignoble lie left her lips, there was an audible indrawn breath of startled surprise from the amazed listeners. Then they turned and fixed their wondering gaze upon the accused man, who, after an inarticulate exclamation of horror, stood as though carved out of stone.